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With all the “Made in China” labels flooding the market
today, it is refreshing to find an American manufacturer using American workers
to produce quality products at a competitive price. Such is the case with
Greenville, South Carolina based Victor Mill, makers of comforters, bedspreads,
duvet covers, coverlets, window treatments, and decorative pillows, whose motto
is “Affordable luxury one piece at a time.”

“I think we are
seeing a swing back to local, quality-made products to a degree,” says Vic
Williamson, President and Owner of Victor Mill Incorporated. “I don’t think
people are going to pay double for the same product, but they may pay 10 or 15
percent more if the quality is there. What we can offer is a better product
made in USA, plus we can custom make small lots of product for our customers
and they don’t have to buy the big container loads.”

Victor Mill
offers different price points depending on the details of the product and the
cost of the fabric. Whenever possible, they also buy fabrics that are American
woven and printed.

Like a lot of
other American manufacturers, Victor Mill took a huge hit starting in 2008 with
the decline in the economy. “What really hurt us, besides the economy, were the
imports flooding the U.S. with low quality and really cheap prices,” says Sofia
Orbeli, Office Manager, for Victor
Mills. “People got into the “replace it” mentality because the products
didn’t last. Now we are more made in the U.S. conscious, plus the quality is
here. In England they have a saying, ‘We are not rich enough to buy cheap
things.’ Buy what you really like, pay a little bit more for quality and enjoy
it longer because it will last longer.”

Orbeli cites the
recent rise in import prices as a positive for American manufacturers. “The
cost of transportation and customs has risen, so now we are competing less with
imports on pricing and offering what I believe to be a better product.”

Manufacturing
Manager, Cindy Bearden, agrees. “It is our people who create the product; that’s
where the quality comes from. If you don’t have good employees, you don’t have
the quality. We have excellent cutters, machine operators and quilters. The
thing that Victor Mills strives for is the satisfaction of its customers. If
the quality wasn’t there we wouldn’t still be here.”

Owner Vic Williamson has been in the
manufacturing business since college when he worked his way through Georgia
Tech designing bottles for Coca-Cola. “I had a friend in the School of Textiles
who talked me into working with him there.
It was the best part-time job I ever had.” After graduating with a B.S.
in Textiles, Vic started looking for work. “Vietnam was going on, so when I
interviewed for positions, they liked me but were afraid that they would put a
lot of work into training me, and I would be drafted. But, because of an old
football injury—I walked on at Georgia Tech and played a little football and
got a little injury to my wrist—the Army didn’t take me. So I called all these
people I had talked to about a job and Coleman offered me a job designing
tents.”

Williamson worked
with Coleman in Pennsylvania where he went through a strike and a cold winter
before deciding to head back south to take a sales associate job in Atlanta,
Ga. with Wamsutta Mills, the Cadillac of sheet manufacturers. “I had an expense
account and a company car, so I was sold on sales,” he laughs. “I was with Wamsutta
for three years then worked for Anchor Hocking selling glass to coke bottlers.
I decided to get back into textiles and went back with Wamsutta for a couple of
years. That’s where I learned the sales end of this business. I already had
design experience and contacts and it just felt right to work with textiles.”
After tripling his income as a southeast rep for Whiting Manufacturing,
Williamson started several of his own textile companies before opening the Atlanta
Quilting Company in 1991 in Atlanta, Georgia.

“When I moved to
this area from Atlanta in 2000, the business name didn’t fit anymore,” Williamson
explains when asked about the company name. “I started in the old Victor Mill
factory in Greer and my name is Victor, so that’s how Victor Mill Incorporated
began.”

Since that time,
Victor Mill has moved from Woodside Mill to its current location in the old
American Spinning Mill in Greenville, where it has resided now for three years.
“At one time I had three retail stores and large million dollar accounts,” states
Williamson. “Then some bad accounts, a major theft and the economy took its
toll. But we survived it and have come back even stronger to offer some of the
best home furnishing products on the market made by Americans who really take
pride in their work. We do special things. That’s the way we have survived.”